Storms (Rita & Katrina) Thread II

Connecticut Man1 on September 24, 2005 at 3:32 pm

C&L had this first hand account linked out of getting out of Rita’s way:

The Politics of Failure Have Failed
Filed under:
Goatse — Rufus J Squirrel @ 8:49 pm

I just returned from evacuating Houston. I was on the road for around 24 hours. Here is an account of my experience. I haven’t yet checked the news to see the current status of the ill-advised evacuation – I wanted to write just what happened and my impressions without any new information. All that’s changed since we got out is I’ve now had about six hours of sleep.

I went down to Houston this Tuesday to film an event for work. The producer and I drove down and it took about 10 hours. Our camera and sound men rode down on a bus with the subject of a documentary we’re currently working on. He is a tremendous and prolific “vernacular” (i.e. “self taught” or “folk”) artist and he and his family were coming to Houston to participate in events surrounding the first exhibition of his work in a major show. They were to drive down Wednesday.

In case you’ve never been to Texas, which I hadn’t, you should be aware that Texas, at least east Texas, is the most foul smelling place in North America. Everywhere you go, you smell shit coming from somewhere that’s extremely heavy in chemicals. Either that or horse shit. There are refineries and chemical plants everywhere. Houston is somehow the fourth most populous city in the country. The only reason I can surmise for that is that some people, a ton of them actually, enjoy the feeling of Drano in their nostrils and Johannesburg summers. Or something. Whatever. Texas fucking sucks.

Early Wednesday afternoon I received a call from someone at the museum informing me that the museum would be closing for the rest of the week because of hurricane Rita. All events surrounding the opening were cancelled. The artist and his family were already en route, however, so we planned to take them to the museum Thursday morning to privately view the exhibit and then we were all going to get out of town (our hotel was kicking us out). That all went fine. We went back to the hotel and got some recommendations on how we should get out. We already knew that traffic was fucked all over town and had been for over a day at this point. People were already finding themselves stranded all over every major traffic artery out of town. These intrepid Texans had turned out to be big fat pussies.

The crew loaded up and headed out. As we were loading up on shit from our minibar, the sound guy commented how 28 Days Later the whole thing was starting to feel. We were taking provisions with an extremely uncertain future as we watched disaster unfold on the television. The zombies were coming. People were fleeing. Lots of people weren’t going to make it. The family took the bus and their own route. I was pessimistically (I thought at the time) expecting it to take us around 20 hours to get home.

Long story short – the recommended route wasn’t going to work. We were moving around a mile an hour. So we decided to try some backroads. Our cameraman had a detailed map program on his laptop and was able to give us good directions from the back seat. We were taking dirt roads that most people, even local Texans, didn’t seem to know existed. Even so, the backroads were backed up all over the place. We kept trying to find alternate routes but everything everywhere was screwed. We stopped at a small grocery on some country road that was doing a brisk business where we saw people trying to come up with a plan, asking if there was gas, looking tired and confused and everyone a little scared (though I’m sure no self-respecting Texan would admit it). In roughly 12 hours, we had only made it about 50 miles outside of Houston. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. There was no gas to be found. To Texas’ credit, we were saved from sitting on one of these roads by a cowboy that yelled something about an alternate route as we drove by and gave us directions. This guy was obviously not a pussy like the rest of his statesmen. He referred to the road and situation we were on as “two hour bullshit” (though it was taking way longer than that to get anywhere). I should also mention that there was guy driving an RV behind us that looked much the part of the Gordon’s Fisherman. I doubt he was a pussy either.

We had been on the road since around 12:30 PM and it was now 2 AM. We had gotten nowhere. I saw a woman jump out of the car in front of us and flag down a local EMS vehicle that seemed to be doing an excellent job of driving up and down the left lane of the latest two-lane road we had been on for over an hour and a half for no apparent reason but to impress everyone with their lights and ability to freely drive the wrong way whenever they want. I couldn’t really catch their conversation but I clearly made out “because we need SOME FUCKING HELP” as the uninterested volunteer EMS folks drove off to complete another round of light flashing. Right after that, we saw an older man on the side of the road just standing there handing out water. That was the nicest thing I saw the entire time. Everyone was actually being pretty nice to each other – letting people in, walking around their cars and talking, etc. The kindness of some random guy standing in the middle of a tremendous mess helping any way he could at two in the morning was actually pretty “touching.”

Our luck was about to change. But not that soon. Following the above exchanges, we shortly were directed onto a road by a sheriff – the first law enforcement we had really seen doing anything besides driving around in nearly 14 hours. We sat on the road where he sent us for over another hour. Finally we saw another cop and got onto a road that was actually moving. Like no traffic. We couldn’t believe it. We started hauling ass, went through another few checkpoints and ended up on state highway 59 going north. At this point we had around a quarter of a tank of gas. As soon as we got on 59 we saw people pulled over everywhere. I think most of them weren’t actually out of gas but didn’t have enough to think they could safely go on. We headed north and FINALLY, in Nacogdoches, filled up on gas. Made it to I-20, headed east, blah blah blah. I stopped driving around 4:15 AM after caffeine began to induce vague acid flashbacks and let the sound guy take the wheel. We finally made it back to base around 12:30 PM in Birmingham.

I don’t know what happened to the people stranded all over the road on 59. Or I-45 or 290 or any of the other roads for that matter. The bus somehow made it but was still in Louisiana around the time we got home. We lost the local news simulcast out of Houston on the radio around 2:30 AM. But here’s what I do know:

Governor Rick Perry, upon hearing of stranded motorists, said something to the effect of, “I issued a PSA two days ago (Tuesday) telling people to top off on gas. Obviously some people didn’t heed that warning.” Some other emergency official said, “That’s why we tell people to evacuate early” (apparently before anyone actually tells them to evacuate). The mayor of Houston, Bob or Bill or Dickface White, apparently didn’t follow the evacuation plan and told people to leave prematurely; thereby insuring the gridlock that gripped the entire region. By Wednesday evening he had changed his tune and was telling people to just stay home. It was too late for millions of people. There was also absolutely no use of the emergency broadcasting system to tell people what to do or where to go.

Conclusion:

Rick Perry is a gerrymandering dickless douchebag motherfucker. And he also fucked up the evacuation.

The mayor of Houston is a goddamned idiot.

The now well established practice of blaming people for their misfortune when they follow the recommendations of their own government is alive and well.

Texas fucking sucks.

We were extremely lucky. We got out. Others were not. As far as I know, and I haven’t heard any news directly about where we were today, people are still stuck and now have a hurricane coming down on their heads. I expect that at some point some level of government will succeed at its most basic charge – that of protecting its citizens from actual threats and not boogiemen. But it doesn’t seem that will be anytime soon.

4 Comments

NorthDakotaDemocrat on September 24, 2005 at 1:11 pm

Has anyone seen any reports from the MSM TV dittoheads on what happened with all those folks who we last saw “parked” on the highway N of Houston?

I have yet to see one, although I heard Anderson Cooper wondering how they were faring.
- Connecticut Man1 on September 24, 2005 at 3:32 pm
  
  C&L had this first hand account linked out of getting out of Rita’s way:
  
  The Politics of Failure Have Failed
  Filed under:
  Goatse — Rufus J Squirrel @ 8:49 pm
  
  I just returned from evacuating Houston. I was on the road for around 24 hours. Here is an account of my experience. I haven’t yet checked the news to see the current status of the ill-advised evacuation – I wanted to write just what happened and my impressions without any new information. All that’s changed since we got out is I’ve now had about six hours of sleep.
  
  I went down to Houston this Tuesday to film an event for work. The producer and I drove down and it took about 10 hours. Our camera and sound men rode down on a bus with the subject of a documentary we’re currently working on. He is a tremendous and prolific “vernacular” (i.e. “self taught” or “folk”) artist and he and his family were coming to Houston to participate in events surrounding the first exhibition of his work in a major show. They were to drive down Wednesday.
  
  In case you’ve never been to Texas, which I hadn’t, you should be aware that Texas, at least east Texas, is the most foul smelling place in North America. Everywhere you go, you smell shit coming from somewhere that’s extremely heavy in chemicals. Either that or horse shit. There are refineries and chemical plants everywhere. Houston is somehow the fourth most populous city in the country. The only reason I can surmise for that is that some people, a ton of them actually, enjoy the feeling of Drano in their nostrils and Johannesburg summers. Or something. Whatever. Texas fucking sucks.
  
  Early Wednesday afternoon I received a call from someone at the museum informing me that the museum would be closing for the rest of the week because of hurricane Rita. All events surrounding the opening were cancelled. The artist and his family were already en route, however, so we planned to take them to the museum Thursday morning to privately view the exhibit and then we were all going to get out of town (our hotel was kicking us out). That all went fine. We went back to the hotel and got some recommendations on how we should get out. We already knew that traffic was fucked all over town and had been for over a day at this point. People were already finding themselves stranded all over every major traffic artery out of town. These intrepid Texans had turned out to be big fat pussies.
  
  The crew loaded up and headed out. As we were loading up on shit from our minibar, the sound guy commented how 28 Days Later the whole thing was starting to feel. We were taking provisions with an extremely uncertain future as we watched disaster unfold on the television. The zombies were coming. People were fleeing. Lots of people weren’t going to make it. The family took the bus and their own route. I was pessimistically (I thought at the time) expecting it to take us around 20 hours to get home.
  
  Long story short – the recommended route wasn’t going to work. We were moving around a mile an hour. So we decided to try some backroads. Our cameraman had a detailed map program on his laptop and was able to give us good directions from the back seat. We were taking dirt roads that most people, even local Texans, didn’t seem to know existed. Even so, the backroads were backed up all over the place. We kept trying to find alternate routes but everything everywhere was screwed. We stopped at a small grocery on some country road that was doing a brisk business where we saw people trying to come up with a plan, asking if there was gas, looking tired and confused and everyone a little scared (though I’m sure no self-respecting Texan would admit it). In roughly 12 hours, we had only made it about 50 miles outside of Houston. We were literally in the middle of nowhere. There was no gas to be found. To Texas’ credit, we were saved from sitting on one of these roads by a cowboy that yelled something about an alternate route as we drove by and gave us directions. This guy was obviously not a pussy like the rest of his statesmen. He referred to the road and situation we were on as “two hour bullshit” (though it was taking way longer than that to get anywhere). I should also mention that there was guy driving an RV behind us that looked much the part of the Gordon’s Fisherman. I doubt he was a pussy either.
  
  We had been on the road since around 12:30 PM and it was now 2 AM. We had gotten nowhere. I saw a woman jump out of the car in front of us and flag down a local EMS vehicle that seemed to be doing an excellent job of driving up and down the left lane of the latest two-lane road we had been on for over an hour and a half for no apparent reason but to impress everyone with their lights and ability to freely drive the wrong way whenever they want. I couldn’t really catch their conversation but I clearly made out “because we need SOME FUCKING HELP” as the uninterested volunteer EMS folks drove off to complete another round of light flashing. Right after that, we saw an older man on the side of the road just standing there handing out water. That was the nicest thing I saw the entire time. Everyone was actually being pretty nice to each other – letting people in, walking around their cars and talking, etc. The kindness of some random guy standing in the middle of a tremendous mess helping any way he could at two in the morning was actually pretty “touching.”
  
  Our luck was about to change. But not that soon. Following the above exchanges, we shortly were directed onto a road by a sheriff – the first law enforcement we had really seen doing anything besides driving around in nearly 14 hours. We sat on the road where he sent us for over another hour. Finally we saw another cop and got onto a road that was actually moving. Like no traffic. We couldn’t believe it. We started hauling ass, went through another few checkpoints and ended up on state highway 59 going north. At this point we had around a quarter of a tank of gas. As soon as we got on 59 we saw people pulled over everywhere. I think most of them weren’t actually out of gas but didn’t have enough to think they could safely go on. We headed north and FINALLY, in Nacogdoches, filled up on gas. Made it to I-20, headed east, blah blah blah. I stopped driving around 4:15 AM after caffeine began to induce vague acid flashbacks and let the sound guy take the wheel. We finally made it back to base around 12:30 PM in Birmingham.
  
  I don’t know what happened to the people stranded all over the road on 59. Or I-45 or 290 or any of the other roads for that matter. The bus somehow made it but was still in Louisiana around the time we got home. We lost the local news simulcast out of Houston on the radio around 2:30 AM. But here’s what I do know:
  
  Governor Rick Perry, upon hearing of stranded motorists, said something to the effect of, “I issued a PSA two days ago (Tuesday) telling people to top off on gas. Obviously some people didn’t heed that warning.” Some other emergency official said, “That’s why we tell people to evacuate early” (apparently before anyone actually tells them to evacuate). The mayor of Houston, Bob or Bill or Dickface White, apparently didn’t follow the evacuation plan and told people to leave prematurely; thereby insuring the gridlock that gripped the entire region. By Wednesday evening he had changed his tune and was telling people to just stay home. It was too late for millions of people. There was also absolutely no use of the emergency broadcasting system to tell people what to do or where to go.
  
  Conclusion:
  
  Rick Perry is a gerrymandering dickless douchebag motherfucker. And he also fucked up the evacuation.
  
  The mayor of Houston is a goddamned idiot.
  
  The now well established practice of blaming people for their misfortune when they follow the recommendations of their own government is alive and well.
  
  Texas fucking sucks.
  
  We were extremely lucky. We got out. Others were not. As far as I know, and I haven’t heard any news directly about where we were today, people are still stuck and now have a hurricane coming down on their heads. I expect that at some point some level of government will succeed at its most basic charge – that of protecting its citizens from actual threats and not boogiemen. But it doesn’t seem that will be anytime soon.
  - Dean Pajevic on September 24, 2005 at 3:59 pm
    
    This is a HELL OF A STORY. Wow.
Dean Pajevic on September 24, 2005 at 4:44 pm

I get such a charge out of that mayor of Galveston — she is one no-nonsense, tough woman.

Storms (Rita & Katrina) Thread II

About The Author

Dean Pajevic

4 Comments

Recent Posts

Recent Comments